Logolounge

LOGOLOUNGE.COM

THE 2008 REPORT BY BILL GARDNER

More Clean and Less Green

Trendwatching, until recently, has largely been an exercise in watching connections
form between direct associations. Photoshop releases a new filter, and voila — an
entire raft of logos take on that effect. A particular illustration style is featured in a
successful advertising campaign or movie, and in what seems like minutes, the fla-
vor of that art starts to enhance corporate identities.

Periodically, something truly surprising and unexpected pops up. Finding those little
treasures are one of the great perks of categorizing 27,000 logos, as LogoLounge
(available now at
www.Logolounge.com, where members can view all 71,000-plus
logos), and a talented panel of judges just did in preparation for our fourth book. But
there's always that natural undercurrent of influence that touches this design and that,
a drift of scent, a faint change in air temperature. It's there, but almost not.

This year, however, it seems as though there has been a change in the nature of
trends themselves. Instead of a hub-to-spoke relationship in which trends fan out
from a central source, prevailing tendencies in logo design now seem to send out long
underground runners that poke through the dirt in unrelated, unexpected places, any-
where in the world. It's harder and harder to trace the rhizomatous spread of ideas
anymore — which truly is a good thing.